End of season, working on new things

Don't worry, the new things are still very much cycling related! I realized I haven't posted up in a while. It has been a busy year that is for sure. I have been putting in a bunch of extra work recently on a new exciting project that I hope I will be able to share soon enough.

Asides from the usual, the fall means weights have started again. I usually use this blog to put out my perhaps controversial views on certain training ideas. I did a post last December on weight training (HERE)  and I still agree with most of what I wrote there. This year I have added lunges to work on a bit of a muscle imbalance issue I am having. I also took some time to investigate weight lifting a bit more, and how it could impact cycling.

First off, I know it feels like weight training doesn't do much for me in cycling. I usually stop early (January) as I find that it impairs my ability to get enough volume in on the bike. If you use google scholar to look up research, you can find quite a few studies that show that weight training can improve power, even if you do it during season! Outrageous. The one thing I noticed in these studies is that all power increases seemed to coincide with an increase in leg diameter (more muscle). So the goal then should be to increase muscle mass, which maybe is an obvious goal from weight training, but may be better when it is the sole focus.

With weight training you can go after strength and/or size. They aren't exclusive qualities, but are better trained in different ways. Everything is easiest to picture if you look to the extremes, so we will compare power lifters to body builders.

Power lifters don't necessarily care how much muscle they have as long as they can lift the heaviest weight. So the training they do is very high weight with low reps and low volume. The end target of this training is primarily neuromuscular, as your brain learns how to better activate your muscle fibers in order to perform certain movements more powerfully.

Body builders in contrast, do heavy weights still, but with much more volume (but not too much! That would mean you don't have enough weight on.). They aim to place their muscles under tremendous stress through this to induce muscle tearing and rebuilding. This results in the stereotypical Arnold look. So based on what I mentioned previously, this should be the goal.

When you understand the difference, it makes much more sense. In regards to the neuromusclar adaptions, here is an example why they are useless: You, Mr or Miss Super Fit Cyclist has to go rake the lawn for 30mins. Easy enough, you are active for 10+ hours a week at a solid intensity. How do you feel the next day? Like any workout you have ever done didn't prepare you one bit for that short bout of raking. So building neuromuscular strength for squatting is specific to squatting, and deadlifts for deadlifts etc. Just like all your hours of biking didn't help your raking ability. This is where if you find a workout that mimics cycling, you may potentially get gains from this.

Anyway to summarize, I believe the goal through weight lifting if you are aiming to increase power on the bike is to aim to increase your muscle mass (in your legs). Keep riding during this time as you can work to add neuromuscular strength to that new-found muscle!